The Red Dragon Syndicate
by one from fire
Summary: Gondor was not always a white city. Several hundred years ago, Gondor, and in fact all of Middle-Earth was controlled by various powerful, rich families. Middle-Earth became a chess board, as the families fought for power and wealth. This is the tale of one family, the family behind the Red Dragon Syndicate. Rated T for violence and mild language. No slash. Full warning inside.
1. Chapter 1

_This fic may , at times, be either have a high T to a low M rating, but when a particular chapter is going to be M, it will say so at the top of the chapter. A rated M chapter probobly won't have a large affect on the story though. The first 3 chapters will set up the story, and after that it will be more like a third and first person narrative, rather than just straight summery. _

**Disclaimer : I do not own the setting, some of the charactors, nor the time frame of the story. They all belong to J. R. R. Tolkien and estate, and to New Line Cinema.**

Chapter 1: The Dragon's Birth

"Please tell me! Please! I'm old enough now!" a little girl whined.

"Alright, alright!" an old man replied. "Just stop that infernal whining."

"Oh thank you Uncle Alwhich! Thank you!"

"Let me sit down, and get me something to drink, it'll be quite a long tale."

As the young girl ran off to fetch Alwhich something to drink, Alwhich prepared to relate his story.

It had been several years since Alwhich even thought about his family, and many of his memories were not plesant ones. As he recollected his thoughts, he promised himself that he would not cry at any point during his story. "Only the weak cry." he thought to himself.

"I've got you some well water. Can you start the story now?" the young girl asked.

"Alright. This will be a long tale, so get yourself a chair and make yourself comfortable." Alwhich said.

"600 years ago," Alwhich began, "in the sea kingdom of Beirland, the syndicate was formed by my family, but we didn't start as a syndicate. We started in the export business. Over the next 50 years or such, we consolidated our power, and began to dominate the export business. Every export from ships to lumber to silver spoons went through us. Being a small sea kingdom, Beirland was totally reliant on imports, and to pay for imports of food, and raw materials, Beirland became Middle-Earth's largest supplier of ships, ship repair materials, and spoons. At the time Beirland had several such family companies, and was reliant on the money, power and influence each family wielded.

Then along came the 143 king, King Armiscus. he wanted the government to regain its former strength, and that meant taking power away from the companies. That was not a popular decision. Many families, instead of losing their land, money, power ect., fled to other nations. Some went to Rohan, to the lands in the distant east, to Harad, north to Agmar and Arnor, and some fled to Gondor. My family went to Gondor, where setting up a new business was near impossible. There were established companies that dealt with different aspects of the economy, and Gondor's military was strong. "

Here Alwhich paused to take a drink, and to catch his breath. The young girl was listening intently, and absorbed each word.

"Go on uncle. Go on." she said impatiently.

"It was during this time that Gondor went through a change in government. The old steward, Boromir, was old and sickly, and so his first son, Cirion, took the rod of stewards and began his rule of the white tower. Between the political unrest and the drop in te price of parchment, fine swords, and high quality coth, the merchants and the merchant guild were forced to, charge less for the items soldm and therefore pay their employees less and produce cheaper quality goods. As products lost their respectibility, my family saw an oppertunity.

There were four brothers at the time, Cimban, Torlic, Crazon, and my ancestor, Listhfor. Looking over the city, each brother saw a void in an occupation that each exceeded in. Cimban was a soldier. Each of his waking thoughts went along the lines of "Gondor's military is strong, but they have a distinct lack of heavy calvery" or "If I had to defend Osgiliath, I would position skirmishers here..."

Torlic was a gambling master. He knew how to swindle other men into handing over money, and think they were ahead of the house. Gondor had very strict laws about gambling, yet there were still the underground gambling parlors and race tracks,, and they usually operated under the cover of night. Gondor's miliatary used to conduct raids from time to time, but the declining trade from the north and east was beginning to hurt the White Citidel's treasury. Mathmatics was Torlic's speciality, posessing the knowledge to preform complex equasions in his mind.

Crazon was a logistics expert. Wielding an exact knowledge of how long an ox cart would take to go to Rohan and come back with a cartfull of hay was just the beginning of his abilities. He also had a mathmatical mind, and, while torlic would calculate expense, Crazon would see how dangerous, and how useful a purchace would be and how long it would take to arive and make a profit.

The final brother, Listhfor, dealt primarily in food imports. Gondor, being a large city, had a group of merchants to take care of keeping the city fed at low cost, but over time, the merchants and the officials who oversaw that the city had ample supplies of foodstuff, became corrupt, accepted bribes, and ended up being sacked by the government for short selling vital supplies. Using money borrowed from Torlic, who hd already set up several very popular gambling houses, Listhfor began to fill the vaccum left by the food merchants, and ended up controlling 45% of Gondor's food before his death.

Each brother soon became the best in his respective positions in Gondor, and as Cirion needed rich, powerful advisiors, each was ushered into the corridors of power. However, finding the bureaucracy between the steward and the city elders too much to deal with, the brothers decided, by vote, to control the city from the shadows. So no brother and his family would grow too much and overpower the rest, each brother swore an oath. The oath was accompanied by a small slit on the wrist by a silver hilted knife, in accordance with the tradition in Bierland when an oath was taken."

"Wait. Are you saying that you cut yourself when you make an oath?" the girl asked.

"Yes, I am. It may seem strange here in the North, but in the western sea kingdoms that is standard practice." Alwhich said. "In fact, I remember the time that my friends and I decided to..."

"Uncle Alwhich!"

"What? Oh sorry, I must have gotten off topic. Where was I?"

"Something oath."

"Good to see you are paying attention. Oath, taken, oh! I know where we are.

All four of the brothers and their famlies, from their wives to their youngest sons gathered in a dark room. Each brother stood in front of the fireplace, the sole source of light. And with the patriarch of the family (the father of the brothers) as a witness, each of the brothers swore the oath, cut their wrist, and collected the blood in a cup.

"I, Listhfor, son of Beirland, do hereby swear to retain the bonds of blood, to, when needed, provide supportand services needed by my family. I also swear to keep my bloodline pure, to not mix with Gondor, Rohan or any blood other than that from Beirland. From this day forward I shall, to the best of my abilities and resources, protect my brothers, assist mybrothers, guide my brothers, and a light up the darkness. This I do swear, as the blood of the Kasagar syndicate, the Dyrint syndicate, the Amor syndicate flows into the cup that I drink from, thus I swear as the founding member of the Red Dragon Syndicate!"

_Thank you for reading! Please review. Thanks!_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2-Chaos in Order

Er, hello. Many thanks to WargishBoromirFan for pointing out my innability to spell. English is my 3rd language so please bear with me. That being said, here's chapter 2.

"Under Cirion, the city of Osgiliath fell into ruin, having been attacked by Orcs, Uruks and foul creatures. The city of Osgiliath was once a source of pride for Gondor, but also a source of shame, as it was the second major city after Minas Ithil, now called Minas Morgul to fall to the shadow in the east. The loss of Osgiliath was a blow to Gondor's pride, and Cirion and the council of elders agreed to send a force of 20,000 into Ithilien. The army, consisting of 10,000 footsoldiers, 3,000 medium calvery, 4,000 heavy calvery, 3,000 archers, and cooks, stable hands, surgeons and others needed to keep an army running were sent to Ithilien.

Now an army needs provisions, a lot of provisions. Listhfor was more than happy to oblige. Now a sucessful buisness needs a product, in this case food, a market, in this case the defending army in Ithilien, and happy employees. Listhfor was smart. The previous foodstuff merchants had only paid the farmers a mere 35% of the profit, and did not pay for seed, animals, and equipment repairs. Listhfor, using Torlic's money, paid the farmers 50% of the profit, paid for seed, animals, equipment repairs, firewood for the winter, left more than enough food for the farmers to feed themselves, and provided free transportation of crops to the market. The farmers were grateful, and were more than happy to meet their quota, instead of making excuses about flood, drought, bandits or the like." Alwhich began the next morning.

The night before, after tucking the young girl into bed, Alwhich went from her father's house to his own. Once the door was tightly shut and the locks and traps bypassed or reset, Alwhich took a candle, lit it, and sat down at the table in the middle of the one room house. His age was beginning to take its toll. He had looked old for years, his hair had been white since before the War of the Ring, but his had never felt old. Decades after the war against the shadow, Alwhich had been able put in a full day's work on his plot of land by himself, but today of all days, he felt exhausted. It was the beginning of the planting season, and so Alwhich was plowing his east field, but he had two strong oxen, and didn't exert much work.

"Hm. I don't recall moving that rug over to that corner." Alwhich thought to himself. "I remember it was over there."

Alwhich walked over to the rug, lifted it up over his shoulder and heard a crash behind where the rug was resting.

"That's odd. What could it be?" he thought.

When he went to inspect, his pupils dilated, his heartbeat increased, and his brain began to churn faster. He reached down, picked up the object that had falled, and reverently placed it back on the small table it had fallen off of. Alwhich then walked over to the candle, blew it out, and went to bed.

The object that had fallen was a sword, a one-handed sword made in the Beirland fashion. The scabbard was made of fine, polished oak and bound with strips of polished brass. Wrapped around the handguard was a red ribbon.

"Uncle Alwhich! Please wake up!" the young girl pleaded.

Alwhich woke up with a snort and said "Sorry?"

"You fell asleep." the girl said factually.

"I'm sorry. Army, Ithilien, provisions...Ah farmers. Now the food had to be transported to Ithilien, as the settlers there could not feed both themselves and a full quarter of the Gondorian army. That is where Crazon entered the scene. It was Crazon who set up supply lines and personally oversaw that they never ran dry. Crazon organized a guard system for the shipments of goods, so bandits, wild beasts and foul creatures would not interfere. In doing so, Crazon established close relationships with the cooks, the stable hands, and some officers, particulary the quartermasters.

Cimban, ever the soldier, because of his close relationship with those who fed the army, was allowed to meet with the top generals in charge of the Gondorian troops. Cimban was the one who advised the generals where to place forts and fortified areas, near rivers, on mountian foothills, Due to his abilities, Cimban was given a title and a rank equivilant to a general.

Even Torlic found use for the soldiers that left. Soldiers need entertainment. Ithilien was beautiful, but hardened warriors could only look at the scenery for so long. So Torlic smuggled dice, and dice handlers into Ithilien, hidden under Crazon's shipments. In addition to that, almost all of the soldiers came from Minas Tirith's garrisons, leaving the white tower weakened. Once Minas Tirith was weakened, Torlic was quick to establish gambling halls, entertainment houses, and stores that sold less than reputable goods. The city council and the steward Cirion tried their best to shut down Torlic's illegal enterprises, but the people in Minas Tirith protected them, hiding them in the homes of the people, and even in the soldier's garrisons."

Now all this good fortune could not last forever. Soon other famlies began to see that Gondor was weak, and capitolized on that. Soon other, rival businesses were set up. Buisnesses that did everything from importing illegal substances, to contracting assassins, to running gambling and female entertainment houses. The four brothers were now getting old, the oldest, Cimban was almost 60, and began shifting the family buisness to their sons.

"That's enough for tonight" Alwhich said. "I'll tell you more after supper tomorrow. Sleep tight."

"Mmm..." the young girl said, half asleep on a chair.

"Come on, wake up!" Alwhich shouted, shaking her shoulder.

The young girl rubbed her eyes, said "G'night" and limped off to her side of the house.

"Cute girl." Alwhich said as he walked out the door into the chilly, starless night.

Well there's chapter two. Please read and review!


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